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Some time ago, under one of my YouTube videos, a viewer asked me if I was up for a challenge. The challenge was to make a feather stick with your weak, non-dominant hand. I sure was up for it as I had experienced the need to use my weak (left in my case) hand for about three weeks when I stabbed myself in the right hand, which effectively made me left-handed for a period of time.

I could still use my right hand to some degree. Hold or maybe even lift things without overloading the palm of the hand. But anything requiring grabbing, squeezing and manipulating using the fingers was out of the question. So if I had to start a fire at that time I’d have to do most of the fiddly work with my weaker hand which has no experience with this type of tasks whatsoever.

Should such injury create or worsen a survival situation, I’d have to be able to do most ‘right-handed’ tasks with my left hand. And believe me if I tell you it’s not easy! Of course, since I’m pretending my right hand is injured, I thought I should strike the ferro rod with my left hand too. But then I realized that holding the rod in my right hand isn’t exactly something I’d be able to do with my injured hand anyway. So I added a new skill to the challenge – lighting a fire with only one hand.

The trick is to use your foot to immobilize the handle on your knife resting on your feather stick with its blade sticking up, and use the exposed sharp spine to create sparks like in the pictures below. It takes time but it’s possible and quite reliable.

Don’t expect things to go smoothly or be perfect. They most likely won’t be. Under normal circumstances, I can make feathers that look a bit like a piece of art and it’s really frustrating to see myself struggle to make a single curl with my left hand. It’s a bit like being a child again. Only you already know what it feels like to walk and run without falling down on your knees every other step. You just can’t do it for some messed up reason. Really annoying feeling.

Bear in mind, that in a real survival scenario things are going to be even more difficult, frustrating and the injured hand will most likely hurt like a bitch, which does not help focusing on the job. To make everything even more ‘fun’, add a possibility of strong wind and rain (which happened to me when shooting the video below), and the fact that you will not be ok with just one stick. You’ll need more like four to six nice and big feather sticks with the feathers attached to the main shaft.

Why attached? Well, if you’re lucky and it isn’t windy and rainy, you can afford to collect whatever’s fallen off to the ground. But if you’re not, the wind will blow away everything you incautiously cut off, and drench it in the wet grass or mud. And it’s not easy to make those curls stay attached when carving with your weak hand. Especially when the strong hand is hurting, you are cold and wet, and under a lot of stress and pressure to make that fire going as soon as possible.

Some time ago, I traveled to the Tatra mountains and even climbed one of its highest peaks Rysy, which is also the highest point in Poland.

But what I really wanted to talk about are things I saw there. Not just up the hills but also in the local museum. So let me explain how all this relates to what we know today as bushcraft.

You see, I come from a country where up until relatively recently, people had to be largely self-sufficient. You can still observe that, especially, in the Polish highlands. The highlanders are renowned for their independence, hardiness and strong attachment to tradition, which by the way is also quite unique. Many of them still dress, sing and dance like their ancestors 200 years ago! Although, now it’s mostly to entertain tourists. They also have their distinct dialect, which to me sounds pretty damn awesome. I guess it’s a bit like the Appalachian American, which I also find very pleasant to listen to, only it doesn’t seem to have any negative connotations in Poland.

So when you go to a museum in the biggest and most famous tourist town in the area – Zakopane – you quickly realise that self-reliance, survival and bushcraft are not just empty words, fads for crazy people with too much money and too little to worry about or terms reserved for some distant tribes from tropical regions. You learn that this is how people lived less than a human lifetime ago in a large European country.

What did I see? Well, just take a look at this awesome outdoor cooking rig and shepherd’s axes.

These, by the way, are probably the most underestimated survival tools I know. You take it on a hike as a walking stick but if need be, you can use it to take down a small tree, delimb it, split wood, drive nails or use it as a weapon since it is practically a little pole axe.

Nowadays, the axe has become more of a prop in traditional dances and performances and is most often sold as an unusable souvenir. However, you can still find and buy proper shepherd’s axes, although, I hear that outside of Poland they can be ridiculously expensive. I got my carefully selected axes, with historically accurate ash wood shafts and decorated carbon steel heads for about $15-$20 each, and decided to bring this tool back to live and use it like in the good old times. It worked great.

But let’s take a look at some other interesting bushcraft and survival type tools I saw in the museum. Bear in mind, that these are things used on a day-to-day basis just a few decades ago.

Decorated axe heads and an anti-wolf collar for a shepherd’s dog

Regional cleavers, typical highland-style knives, pipes and brooches

Hunting and trapping equipment including some massive bear trap, and hand-made slingshot/crossbows. Joerg Sprave from the slingshot channel would be proud.

A pump drill and a ‘spoon-making chisel’, plus an entire ‘white room’. It’s called white because it was the only room without a fireplace. It was to preserve the bright wooden walls and protect them from smoke.